Camels are familiar to most of the English-speaking world only as beasts of burden, as Arab mounts on the silver screen, or as curiosities in the zoo. Camel meat and milk almost never find their way to the local grocer’s shelves. In many parts of Africa and Asia, however, camel milk and meat are valuable sources of nutrition for many people. The following is a broad overview of the camel’s current role as a food resource and a summary of evidence dealing with the early history of human reliance on camel products.

The people who keep camels for food are generally nomadic pastoralists, who rely primarily on livestock for their livelihood and move regularly in order to care for their animals, which, in addition to camels, may include other species such as sheep, goats, and cattle. In both Africa and Asia, camel pastoralists inhabit arid environments characterized by extreme, often unpredictable, fluctuations in temperature and rainfall. The latter may be restricted to one or two short seasons, may fail to happen in any given year, or may be localized in a very small geographic area, leaving vast stretches of the environment parched and barren. As a result, the productive potential of these ecosystems varies greatly over time and space, and those inhabiting such areas must be able to adapt quickly to variability in food, forage, and water availability. Camels are often a vital part of the pastoral strategy for coping with such harsh conditions. They cover great distances in search of limited and highly scattered forage and water, which is then efficiently converted into milk and meat for human consumption. In times of prolonged heat or drought, camels may be the only productive livestock and, consequently, are invaluable resources during critical months or seasons of scarcity.